rethinking books, publishing, and community. Writ Large Press was launched in 2007 by Judeth Oden and Chiwan Choi, with the publication of Kim Calder’s collection of poetry, Who’s to Say What’s Home.
It was the perfect way for us to begin our mission–to publish the very best writers of Los Angeles. There is so much creative life hidden in this city by the overbearing shadow of the Hollywood sign. Our plan is to help bring as much as we can out into the spotlight. With the publication of Portugal author José Luís Peixoto's Antidote, we've taken our vision outside of the city limits - and there'
It was the perfect way for us to begin our mission–to publish the very best writers of Los Angeles. There is so much creative life hidden in this city by the overbearing shadow of the Hollywood sign. Our plan is to help bring as much as we can out into the spotlight. With the publication of Portugal author José Luís Peixoto's Antidote, we've taken our vision outside of the city limits - and there'
Operating as usual
our friend Fanny Julissa García on Cultural Weekly.
Apologia for My Mother The view from my New York City bedroom looks out onto the brick building next door. One of its windows yells LA SANGRE DE CRISTO at me in red letters. This reminds me of my mother who prays for me even though she knows I am not a believer. She... Read more →
great people doing important work. if you're in the LA area, please attend and support and spread the word on this. #DignidadLiteraria
This Thursday, tomorrow, join us at Antioch University Los Angeles for “Latinos and the Crisis in U.S. Publishing” a panel & roundtable discussion featuring Wendy C. Ortiz, Romeo Guzman, Roxane Gay & Myriam Gurba.
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Moderated by Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo
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#Dignidadliteraria’s national call to action around the crisis in U.S. publishing exposed by the controversy and developments surrounding the publication of Jeanine Cummins’ novel, American Dirt comes on the heels of the powerful community response that is challenging publishing giants like Oprah Winfrey, Flatiron Books and other powerhouses of the U.S. publishing industry to be accountable for the dismal state of the industry’s commitment to Latinx in the United States.
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This event is organized in coordination with groups in at least 10 other cities and will bring together community groups and individuals deeply concerned at the erasure of Latinx from the U.S. literary landscape.
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Sponsors:
Antioch University Los Angeles
AULA, MFA Creative Writing
Women Who Submit
Miresa Collective
Alternative Field
Sipping Wine & Talking Sh*t Podcast
Greg Grano
Ramona Pilar
The Latina Writers Conference
#literaryla
it's been a tricky transition (apologies to our authors who got caught in this not smooth move), but SO EXCITED for this: the official launch of THE ACCOMPLICES, the new partnership between Janice Lee, Peter Woods, Judeth Oden Choi, Michael J Seidlinger, and myself, thus bringing together Entropy, Civil Coping Mechanisms & Writ Large Press. going forward, all our books will be under THE ACCOMPLICES banner, with WLP and CCM being imprints. the biggest reason we formed this partnership? well, to cause exponentially more trouble for the greater good. CHECK OUT OUR NEW WEBSITE: you'll see what we are about, our past projects, and ALL OF OUR BOOKS in one place. JOIN US FOR THIS NEW JOURNEY. we're thriving. http://theaccomplices.org
FINAL MEMORY — Summer of 2017. #90X90LA. It took us three years, but it was time to bring back our summer festival. #90X90LA was inspired by many things, including the presidential elections of 2016 and the subsequent attempt to ban Muslims; the out of control gentrification happening all around LA, especially in the South Central area; the 25th anniversary of the LA Uprising; and by all the amazing artists continuing to fight and create in the city. Designed by Judeth Oden Choi to celebrate, activate, and investigate, the hundreds of artists, the many curators and volunteers, and partners such as Grand Performances, the Annenberg Community Beach House, Little Tokyo Service Center, and CIELO galleries/studios, #90X90LA invited all of us in the city to show up and shed light on the people and cultures thriving locally and holds space for their continued growth at a time when these historic neighborhoods are being decimated, displaced, and otherwise erased for a new wave of gentrification. And we did. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #13 — 2014 to present. Conceived and created by Judeth Oden Choi as a series during 2014’s #90for90 festival, Drunken Masters New Works Series is a free writer development series meant to be irreverent, fun, drunk, lighthearted and approachable. That is in addition to being super productive and helpful. Although it was put aside after 2014, with the help of Janine Lim and Jeff Rogers, who took charge and ran with it, and with new support from PEN America, Drunken Masters returned for 2017’s #90X90LA and continues on today. It has been produced at multiple venues, Wolf & Crane, The Escondite, Civic Center Studios, with 2019 bringing a new space once again. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #12 — April - May 2016. Something we had always wanted to do was to work with Leigh Ann Hahn and Grand Performances. Our opportunity came with Slam In The Stacks, a series of 9 events in 3 libraries—readings, writing workshops, and performance workshops. We invited over 30 poets and performers to work with the communities in the three different neighborhoods, picking one workshop participant to perform on the Grand Performance stage during an event celebrating the COLA grant winners. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #11 — March 2016. SURVEILLANCE. What can we say? It changed so much for us. Or more accurately, it made clear to us the path we’d been on, the questions we’d always asked ourselves. What is our purpose as an indie press? Why do we need to exist? Thanks to the vision of Ashaki M. Jackson, which led to our creation of the small print chapbook series, with all money going to non-profits of the author's choice, we got to publish Lynell George, Mike Sonksen, Teka Lark, Scott Woods. Also thanks to Adam Leipzig and Cultural Weekly for giving us room to publish excerpts and to Rhea Tepp / Daisy Noemi / Bianca Barragan for giving us a table LAZF 2016 to debut this chapbook. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #10 — February 2016. This was an idea born from, well, conversations at the bar. What started out as “We should have an instant ramen cart stationed outside of these bars. We’d make a killing!!!” became “So how do we incorporate instant ramen into literature?” LOL. Seriously, with The Instant, we wanted to create an event that captures THE NOW of who and what we are, of where and how we live. Which is as people of color. And which is also as poor. We sold instant ramen with the hope of paying whatever amount that we sold to go to the performers. We also implemented a quota: no more than one white writer per event. But as host of the night Chiwan Choi pointed out, we weren’t being racist because we had white writer friends. It only lasted 2 months as is, but we brought it back for AWP 18 as a pop up reading by our table, with audience sitting on the floor of the book fair. With ramen. The series was greatly inspired by Traci Akemi Kato-kiriyama and Tuesday Night Cafe, Natashia Deón and Dirty Laundry Lit, and Nita Noveno and Sunday Salon NYC. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #9 — After the massive project that was #90for90, what were we to do? It was, to the surprise of many who expected something even bigger, DTLABODGEGA. Through Peter Woods’s contact with the owner, we set up a bookstore inside a Downtown LA bodega, and to celebrate the occasion, we produced a unique and intimate literary experience. On this night, any person who came into the store to make a purchase, whether it was cigarette, snacks or cleaning supplies, were entitled to a one-on-one reading from one of the poets we invited, whether it was F Douglas Brown, Rachel McLeod Kaminer, Billy Burgos. It was our way of continuing the exploration into the question: What happens to a community when we place literature in the middle of it, not outside of it? #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #8 — What started out as a business question (how much money can we make doing literary events every night if we also controlled the venue) became something much different, much bigger. #90for90 was to put simply — 90 different literary and arts events over 90 consecutive nights. And the question was no longer about how much money we can make. The question was now: What happens to a city when we place literature, when we place music and arts, in the middle of it every single night? We can point to any of the many amazing facets of the series -- Peter Woods curating the incredible musicians, Judeth Oden Choi conceiving ideas such as Drunken Masters New Works Series, which continues to this day, Jessica Ceballos Y Campbell, who became our partner during the series, bringing both Poesia Para La Gente and the NELA activists to speak on gentrification, or any of the remarkable curators who put together unforgettable nights such as Natashia Deón, Zoë Ruiz, Loretta McCormick, and so on—but ultimately at the end of it all it was LA itself, the people that turned out each and every night, gathering together with people that they’d have never previously met in a literary venue. We want to believe that LA hasn’t been the same since in so many great ways. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #7 — Grand Park BookFest 2013-2016. While Peter Woods was still working at The Last Bookstore, Grand Park contacted the store to see if they were interested in partnering on a downtown book festival. When TLB declined, we swooped in and began four years of producing and programming what we felt a local book festival should be. We filled the stages with writers established and new, with POC writers from all around town, with genres that LA has historically celebrated such as noir curated by Naomi Hirahara, YA curated by Cecil Castellucci, and a celebration of Octavia Butler with writers like Lizz Huerta and Steven Barnes. We covered the grounds of the park with PUBLISH! run by Judeth Oden Choi and poetry on demand through Jessica Ceballos Y Campbell and Poesia Para La Gente. And we got rid of the booths that are symbolic of established book festivals and created one big pop up bookstore in which we laid out books from LA small presses and writers, where people could come and truly discover new and unexpected things without any sense of hierarchy. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #6 — February 2014. Seattle was the first time we attended AWP. and what an appearance we made. After LAB•FEST, for which we gathered together so many LA based artists, writers and presses, it was an important time for us to step out and meet other writers and publishers from around the country, to start connecting bridges beyond our own city. Thanks to KAYA Press, with whom we have collaborated multiple times over the years, we were able to have a table for our books but more importantly, to bring PUBLISH! to AWP. each day at the bookfair we set up a writing station in the first half, and a publishing station in the second half of the day. And we celebrated all the writers publishing their books with, what else, whiskey. In all, we published over 100 books during the three days we were set up. Other highlights included the wonderful Koon Woon bringing us dim sum in the mornings, staying at Soya Jung’s lakeside condo, and meeting Loretta McCormick for the first time. #WLPX #theaccomplices
Memory #5 — 9/7/2013. To celebrate DT•LAB, a bookstore we opened inside The Last Bookstore, we programmed a one day festival called LAB•FEST. Spearheaded by Peter Woods, who was still working at The Last Bookstore at the time, we brought in writers, artists, critics, and musicians and just rocked the hell out for 12 hours. It was unlike anything that had been done by anyone in LA. And it planted the seed for what was to come the following summer. The line-up consisted of literary heroes such as Luis Javier Rodriguez and Sesshu Foster in conversation, and teenaged writers such as Sam Dufelmeier. A panel of some of best street artists moderated by Shana Nys Dambrot. Writers from PEN USA Emerging Voices to the poets of Poesia Para La Gente. From young singer songwriter @Ariana Evans to Grammy Award winning band Quetzal. Plus Andrew Choate, Steve Abee, Wendy C Ortiz, Kima Jones, Lilliam Rivera, Mike Sonksen, El-Haru Kuroi, Traci Akemi Kato-kiriyama, Khadija Anderson, Billy Burgos, Melora Walters, Chris Kerr, Kate Crash, The Six Shooters, Isaac Takeuchi, Cara Chow, Lauren Marks, Azarin Sadegh, Reyna Grande, CRYPTIK, Shark Toof, Andrew Hem, Nathan Ota, JT Steiny, Jen Hofer. Damn. it was a spectacular day attended by over a thousand people and gave us a sense of what we could do as tiniest indie press in bringing people of our city together. #WLPX #theaccomplices
memory #4 -- June 2013 — Friend and artist Annabel Daou offered us a chance to collaborate with her and her partners, Itziar Barrio and Nadia Ayari, in their temporary gallery space, S2A, inside the Old Bowery subway station in downtown New York. After the fiasco with Beyond Baroque a couple of months before, this gave us a chance to ask the big question: What does it mean to be a publisher, a gatekeeper, at a time when anyone can publish anything? How does that change our job and our responsibility? It can’t just be about getting books out there. Clearly, some literary institutions were (are) interested in gatekeeping. But why? Who did they want to keep out? And so, who did we want to help in? Judeth Oden Choi led the way in designing a two day event featuring Ed Lin, Robin Grearson, Ama Birch, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Mariette Papic, Rachel Maude, Chez Ong, Becca Worby. That would be the start of our long running project, PUBLISH!, in which we tried to deconstruct what was publishing. Playing around with mechanisms like reading aloud, blogging, making chap books, indexing and organizing, the public became the published. Since this New York event, PUBLISH! has continued on in train stations, at parks, and through our Poetic Solutions, reached people around the world, giving them the chance to publish too. It was the most important big idea project we created up until that point. #WLPX #theaccomplices
memory #3: january 15, 2013. it was the launch of the stunning Eulogy To An Unknown Tree by Billy Burgos. to this day, it is one of our very favorite books. and Billy choice the historic Beyond Baroque to have the event. it was a packed house, with so many people who drove out to the westside from the east and the south. Malik Moore opened the night with music as people mingled in the lobby. the other poets who joined him on stage that night were Conney Williams, Rebecca Gonzales, V Kali, Melissa Alvarado, and Jessica Ceballos Y Campbell, who we met for the first time that night in what we didn't know would become a long incredible relationship.
so many books sold, so many people attending. but the event was marred by pettiness by some (now former) members of the venue. and it started us on a path (on which we continue to this day) to find our own spaces, fight for them, open doors, and hold them open so others could occupy these spaces in our cities. #WLPX #theaccomplices
memory #2: the launch of History of Butoh by Khadija Anderson was one of the first events that Peter Woods, who’d recently become a partner, helped produce. peter found the venue (Billy's Coffee Shop) that could accommodate both a reading and a butoh performance by Khadija (and dance partners). music was provided by her son Flynn and video by James Séamus Knight. it was also the first time we worked closely with an artist in designing the cover and additional art for the book in Melora Walters.
it was a full house with people that most of us don't expect at poetry events: neighbors and family and even strangers who dropped in out of curiosity. and at the end of the night, we had a couple of takeaways: 1) how much when we say community we have to mean the people who live and work around us, not just fellow writers and publishers; and 2) considering how the venue was the place that made the most money that night, we needed to figure out how not only to find space, but to open it up and hold it open for others to come in. #WLPX #theaccomplices
2007 was a year of shifts, of transitions. we (Judeth and Chiwan) quit all our jobs and took off to barcelona for 10 weeks toward the end of the year. Kim Calder was dealing with tragedy and sobriety. and when we returned from our escape to catalunya, we launched Writ Large Press in early 2008. we were living in DTLA was also in the midst of a huge change, with more and more money and gentrifiers (including ourselves) coming in.
our first event, the launch of our first book, Kim's incredible debut Who's to Say What's Home, was held at one of our favorite bars in LA, La Cita, thanks to Keith Myers (and Robin Maguire who connected us). it was a packed house full of family and friends and writers and random people we’d met at the local bars and neighborhood dog park. #WLPX #theaccomplices
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tonight. #softscream via ripl.com
this tuesday. soft scream. êLlê ,Will Logan and Girl Scout Make Out. no cover, just love. via ripl.com
http://s.ripl.com/1mnmey #90x90la via ripl.com
occupying time and space to create safety, critical investigation and supportive community is necessary.
#90x90LA #10daystogo #wlp via ripl.com
#90X90LA on art, disability and access.
this Thursday at art walk. http://s.ripl.com/shhr8n #repost via ripl.com
we do this, not just to say we did it. but we're committed. #90x90la via ripl.com
Sara Borjas with Earth Arrow #90X90LA
The Tissues. #90X90LA
Restless at Soul Together. #90X90LA
#90X90LA
Budo International English Edition
928 S Broadway suite 506